


Cornered

by HauntedAutomaton



Series: Inspired by Art [4]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Fusion, Gen, Grief, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 02:23:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11152209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HauntedAutomaton/pseuds/HauntedAutomaton
Summary: Lapis has some stuff to work out, and decides to try and visit the Beta Kindergarten to do it. Amethyst goes along, and the two get a little in over their heads.





	Cornered

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by this art:
> 
> http://drawbauchery.tumblr.com/post/161613161202/alright-i-caved-indigo-spinel
> 
> I love Drawbauchery's work, so I urge you to go check it out!  
> Note: Linked image is SFW, but there is NSFW on the blog.

 

          A beam of light, followed by a chime rang out across the desert. Two figures, one lithe, one stout, began their trudge away from the warp pad.

          The morning sun crested over the canyon walls.

          The taller gem squinted at the rising sun. "You made us late," said Lapis.

          "Hey, you wanted me to take you here, we do it on my schedule." Amethyst seemed aggressively nonchalant, if that's possible.

          The blue gem gave a half-sneer, matching the other's dispassionate attitude with her own.

          The two walked in silence for a few minutes longer.

          "Are we getting close? My wings are evaporating, and there isn't any water around here to replace them."

          "You should listen to Connie, carry a canteen around," replied Amethyst, "and yeah we're here." The purple gem held her arm out, "Ta-da!"

          Above them towered the silhouette of a monstrous quartz soldier.

          Jasper's emergence hole.

          Lapis didn't look at first. She stared at the ground below it. "Why are you here? She's gone. Just leave it," she muttered. But slowly the ocean gem raised her head.

          A hole in the wall.

          Big, sure, but it was just an absence of rock.

          "Huh..."

          Amethyst looked perturbed. "Well? What didya expect? Confetti to pop out?!"

          "I just thought..." Lapis seemed frustrated and unsure. "I thought I would feel _something_."

          The stout quartz was incredulous. "You flew off for three days because you misheard Greg say the word 'Aspirin.' You can't tell me you don't feel anything."

          "I don't!" Lapis' wings unfurled in small torrents.

          "...Uh-huh."

          Lapis became more flustered than angry. "Well, yeah I do. But not because of this!" She pointed to the vacant shadow in the rock above them.

          Amethyst looked the outline up and down. "Were you supposed to?"

         "Graaagh!" The taller gem through her hands up in defeat, and slumped against the canyon wall under the emergence hole.

         The two gems stayed in silence for a bit, until the purple one started rocking back and forth on her feet with nervous energy.

         "I don't know why I asked you to bring me here, but thanks," said Lapis.

         Amethyst stood still, then stepped forward a bit. "It's cool, I come out here sometimes too, so no big." She turned and plopped down next to Lapis, who, to her own surprise, didn't try to move away.

         The silhouette leered over the two as they sat.

         "I have no idea why I feel nothing."

         Amethyst leaned forward, and Lapis met her gaze. "Well, I do."

         The blue gem raised an eyebrow.

         "Yeah, cus, it's like, Jasper's not in the hole."

         Lapis rolled her eyes. "I know. Jasper's sealed away in a bubble, trapped, where she can't hurt anyone."

         "Nope."

         Lapis' eyes grew wide. "She's not in the bubble?"

         "Our Jasper, sure, but not the Jasper you're talkn' about." Amethyst kicked her foot in the sand idly, making a little divot with her heel.

         "Ok, what? Is Jasper free, or not?!"

         "Naw, Laz, the Jasper you're worried about isn't in this hole, or in a bubble. She's in your head, dude."

         Lapis Lazuli squinted into the sky. "That actually makes sense. But that means I can't confront her."

         "Guess not." Amethyst's foot rubbed against a hard layer of dirt underneath the sand. She shapeshifted her foot into a little scoop shovel, and kept scraping at the ground. "It's your head, after all."

         Lazuli glanced over at the idle quartz. "I guess that means I have to confront myself or something."

         Amethyst stopped digging and the ground, and reverted her foot to its original shape. "Heh, yeah that sounds like something Garnet would say." She grabbed her left arm with her right.

         The shorter gem chewed her tongue a bit, trying to build up the nerve to say something. The sun was still climbing, and their shade would run out soon, so Lapis would probably leave then.

         "I think I know how you feel?" she finally said, quickly adding, "Not like, completely or anything, just, I dunno-"

         "You can relate?" Lapis offered.

         "Yeah, I think so. Jasper said some stuff, one time, that got to me for a while. I know that's not the same or anything but...she did get in my head."

         "What did you do about it?"

         Amethyst picked at the ground with another bout of nervous energy. "We fought."

         "And?"

         The quartz put on a wry smile. "She kicked my butt. Hard."

         Lapis pulled her feet underneath her, and sat up. "I suppose I don't really know what that's like."

         "What, getting your butt kicked by Jasper?"

         "No," Lapis looked at Amethyst with a side-eye and a smirk, "Getting my butt kicked at all."

         Amethyst burst into a belly-laugh, fueled by way too much tension and serious conversation. She punched Lapis' arm, and slouched back against the warming canyon wall, taking a few more chuckling breaths.

         Lapis' smirk spread into a genuine smile as she rubbed her shoulder. Then, she picked herself up, and stepped out from under the shadow of the cliff. Offering her hand the Amethyst, she said "Well, I think that's enough introspection for one day, don't you?"

         "Ab-so-lutely," she said, taking Lapis' hand, and pulling herself up.

         "Hey, Amethyst?"

         "Yup?"

         "Thanks...again."

         "Like I said, no big."

         Lapis lowered her head a bit, and shifted on her feet. "I mean, about talking too."

         "Oh," she looked a little taken aback, "yeah, sure, anytime. Well, ok, not like  _anytime_ but yaknow, sometimes."

         The two shared another laugh, and turned to start heading back towards the warp pad, when they were encompassed by a shadow.

         Their eyes shot up to the top of the cliff face, high above the looming shape of looming hole in the rock, was a ragged, monstrous silhouette. A shaggy beast on all fours, with claws and horns and tusks.

         "Corrupted quartz," said Amethyst, drawing her whip from her chest. Lapis backed up a step behind her. There was far too little water in this place for her liking.

         The mottled blue beast standing atop the precipice growled, and two similar creatures appeared at its sides.

         "Of course," muttered Amethyst as she formed her second whip, "There would be a pack of 'em"

         "Is this a problem?" Lapis asked in a low voice, stepping slowly towards the direction of the warp.

         "Nah, we just gotta stay ahead of these guys," responded the warrior, following Lazuli's steps, creeping away from the cliff.

         "So...do we run yet?"

         The middle corrupted quartz, after turning to its fellows, let out a deep haunting howl.

         "Wait..." said Amethyst.

         "What?" Lapis stopped.

         "I know that blue quartz...I've seen her before...with Jasper!"

         "Do we run yet?" implored Lapis.

         "I don't-" Amethyst began, but before she could finish her thought, the beasts at the top of the hill all began to glow.

         "Oh _grit_ ," spat the quartz.

         Before Lapis could even register the obscenity, the three corrupted quartz hounds above became one. A massive yeti-like creature, with a triangular mouth, barbed claws, jagged tusks and fangs, and a bristling mottled back.

         The corrupted gems had fused.

         Amethyst cried, "Now we run!"

 

* * *

 

         "Ok..." Amethyst breathed, "That didn't go so well."

         The two gems were huddled in the back of a rocky silhouette, listening to the distant roars of the beast outside.

         The corrupted fusion had easily outpaced them with its own massive spin-dash. Huge swaths of the canyons outside were now carved into rubble, and the gems were now cut off from the warp pad.

         The purple quartz spoke again, "Good thing you thought to double back..."

         Lapis remained silent for a moment, simply moving her hand along the inside of the glassy alcove. "It's gonna find us, isn't it?"

         Amethyst shrugged, "Probly. Those things are persistent, that's for sure. And we are on her turf."

         Lapis' face took on a bitter scowl.

         "H-hey, don't be like that...I think..." Amethyst grew very cautious with her words "I think we have one more trick up our sleeve-"

         "No."

         The quartz winced. "Yeah, ok, so I know I'm not the best partner for, well, anything really, but I'll try, ok?"

         Lapis looked at her with worried eyes. "I won't put you through that."

         "Uh...we are talking about fusion, right?"

         "Yes, Amethyst." The gem buried her face in her pale blue hands. "I don't want to do that to you. You're actually good. You care about Peridot and Steven, and...you don't deserve what I do to people."

         The shorter gem took the hands of the taller into her own. "I don't know about all that 'you're a good person' stuff, but I trust you."

         Lapis took a steadying breath.

         "Look," Amethyst continued, "Do you hate me?"

         "No," said Lapis.

         "Do you think I hate you?"

         "No..."

         "And are you being honest with me?"

         "Yes? Urgh! I think so!" Lapis shouted into the narrow alcove.

         The two gems tensed up as they heard a distant bellowing roar.

         "Good enough for me." Amethyst gripped Lapis' hands. "Not to mention we don't have much of a choice."

         Lapis wanted to pull away. To fly off. Try and see if she could make it past the beast, and if she couldn't, at least give Amethyst the chance to make it to the pad. But she realized she couldn't. Not because Amethyst gripped her hands tightly, like Jasper, but because she didn't. Lapis pulled her hands from Amethyst's, and the quartz just let them fall. She didn't seize them. She didn't grab on. Lapis was free to go, and so knew she had to stay.

         "Fine," she finally said, as the thumping of footfalls grew closer outside. "But just..."

         "What is it?" said Amethyst softly, as their gems began to glow.

         "Forgive me."

 

* * *

 

         Outside, the beast sniffed the air. It crawled along the canyon walls, periodically reaching into crevices and vacant holes with a secondary set of thin, multi-jointed arms. It turned. There, in the opening, a light.

         In that moment, she remembered. Vague memories floated through the miasma of the beast's mind. Memories that did not belong. Memories from a Jasper. But the thoughts were enough to give the fusion purpose.

         'This is home. Protect your wretched home. It's all you have. It's all you deserve.'

         As the beast approached the familiar emergence hole, she saw the light flash. An indigo bloom erupted from Jasper's silhouette, and a figure as well.

         The gem had to duck as she leaped from the hole. Even that massive frame of Jasper could not contain this fusion. Her skin was electric indigo, and her eyes were as wild as her cropped hair. Two wings of plasma erupted from her back, and a whip like a blue solar flare burst from her chest.

         The fusion stopped to examine the back of her hand for only a moment, and spoke with a low, but smooth voice, "So I'm some kind of Spinel? Weird."

         The beast roared, flaring her segmented mouth. She still towered over the new fusion.

         The new fusion was, however, undaunted. "Alright," she said, cracking the whip with a flash of lightning, "time to tame the beast."

          The corrupted fusion moved to close the distance, and Indigo Spinel let her, but only for a moment. She flitted to the side, using her whip to maintain range advantage. Her flight was erratic, jolting, and unpredictable. The beast tried to carry her momentum through the failed attacks, but the new gem was always a half-step ahead.

         "C'mon, it's rude to play with your food!" Indigo flitted past the creature's mouth, prompting another snap of the jaws. The flying gem flicked the roof of the creature's mouth with her electric whip, causing the beast to howl in pain.

         "Pthaahahaaa!" Indigo paused for a cruel laugh. "That's what you get."

         Her expression changed when the corrupted fusion hunkered low, however, and opened her segmented mouth wide. The creature's throat began to glow.

         "Ah,  _silt_."

         A beam of light charged forth from the beast's gullet, ripping the air apart with its energy. Indigo tried to move aside, but this time wasn't quick enough. Her leg was seared by the plasma of the beam, and she fell to the sandy ground.

         The beam continued its arc out past the canyon floor and up the side of the wall. The entire line was melted to glass, smoldering under the sun. When its attack concluded, the corrupted fusion bared its teeth, and crept towards the fallen gem.

         On the sand, Indigo rolled over to see the creature approach. Her leg was glimmering with undulating light, at she felt herself becoming torn at the seams.

         "You can't leave yet," she spat. "You need me...Let me do this for you!" Through force of will, her leg recoalesced. When attempted to stand, however, it would not bear her weight.

         "Gragh! You've got to help me!" she shouted to the air around her.

         The beast bared down on the fusion, and once again, light began to seep out from around its teeth.

         "Just...I'm sorry," the fusion said to herself.

         A reflex born of both last-ditch scrapfights and instinctive control of the seas caused the fusion to raise her arms in defense.

         The corrupted quartz fusion let out a bellow of light, heat, and plasma, sending a column at the grounded Indigo.

         The attack, however, did not connect. The light bulged in front of Indigo Spinel, her hand and will causing the energy to bend in a sphere around herself. Like a wave crashing against the shore, the beam could not pierce the fusion's focus.

         Indigo opened her eyes, glassy and mirrored. "Fine, then." she spoke in a dischordent drone. "Let's see how you like it."

         The strands and tendrils of light escaping past her curved back. Indigo moved her arm and will in one fluid motion, gathering all of the beam's remaining energy, and redirecting it into the beast. The last waking thought the corrupted quartzes had, was of awe and confusion.

         When the blinding light and the thundering roar of the plasma stream subsided, Indigo dropped to the ground. She could see three poligonal gemstones fall to the soft sands ahead of them.

         Indigo tried to pick herself up, but faltered once again.

         "I should shatter you mongrels for-" she began to glow and undulate.

         "It's only fair! They would have shattered you!" Indigo argued with herself.

         She collapsed and fell onto her back. Breathing heavily, trying to stabilize her form, she didn't notice one of her sets of hands folding together across her stomach.

         "Wha...oh...Garnet taught me...this is just like  _her_ again isn't it.  _Sugilite_." Indigo was muttering to herself, but breathing more steadily. She laid on the sand, for just a moment more. "Just a thought," she said, before rising.

         She hobbled over to the corrupted gems, and collected them, then knelt back down onto the ground of crushed glass and dirt. "I just wanted to protect you." She folded her hands for meditation once again. "But now you want to be ourselves again. Alright. I can let go." Indigo breathed once more. "Thank you."

         The fusion tore into globs of light. With a small cloud of dust, Amethyst and Lapis dropped to the ground.

         Lapis was the first to try to stand. "Amethyst! I'm sorry, I-"

         Amethyst cut her off. "Woo! That was...interesting. But I call it a win." She rolled over to look at Lapis.

         The blue gem just breathed in confusion.

         "Man, though," Amethyst began, collecting and bubbling the corrupted trio of quartzes, "we are messed  _up_ huh?"

         Lapis continued to sit, trying to gather her composure. "Sugilite..."

         "Yeah, what about her?" Amethyst said, trying not to sound bitter.

         "You do know what it's like, to lose yourself to that."

         Amethyst sent the gems off, one by one, back to the temple. Pausing for just a moment as she held the mottled blue quartz, then sending her on her way too. "Yeah. It got bad."

         "How bad?"

         The quartz looked down into the dirt. "I...she tried to shatter Pearl."

         "Oh no! What a tragedy!" Lapis smirked, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

         Amethyst didn't laugh immediately at this, but built up a rolling chuckle into a steady, bucking guffaw.

         "Oh man, I always forget how funny you are, Laz." Amethyst helped Lapis to her feet, and the two began trudging back to the warp pad.

         As they walked, Lapis spoke up again. "We have some stuff we need to deal with, don't we?"

         "Yyyup."

         "How?"

         Amethyst thought for a moment. "Garnet says it takes time. And if you're as messed up as we are, oh man is it gonna take a while."

         Lapis didn't seem pleased by this. "Is that supposed to help, or is that just the best you got?"

         "Well," Amethyst said as the stepped onto the warp pad, "it's not like we have to do it all today. That's something, right?"

         "True," the blue gem responded.  "But I think we made good progress today anyway. I mean, at least we know that if we have to, we can count on each other. That's something."

         Amethyst looked out across the carved up canyon. "Yeah, plus Indigo is a stone-cold Betty."

         The two gems shared a mischievous smile, as the column of light took them home.


End file.
